Mom cuts my palm
with an old precision:
tick, slip, then stanch
the upswell as the life-line
lengthens or deepens.

She calls my birth,
'malevolent,' and points
the knife to parcel loves
into a manageable pattern.

I beg for luck.
My mother spills the salt.
You have to seize the stars,
shake them down.

__

Sometimes fate seems kind of tentative. Could reshuffling the tarot cards alter your destiny? What kind of manual labor does it take to change a palm reading? And what do you do when someone else wants to change it for you?